Saturday, 7 July 2012

British Music for Piano Duo: Holst, Bainton, Bury & Elgar

Edward Elgar(1857-1934) Serenade for Strings in E
minor, Op.20 – the composer’s own
version for piano duet (1893); Frank Bury(1910-1944) Prelude and Fugue in E flat major for two
pianos (c.1935/f.p. 1987); Edgar Bainton(1880-1956) Miniature Suite for piano duet (1922); Gustav Holst(1874-1934) Elegy (In Memoriam William Morris) From Symphony in F
(‘The Cotswolds’ – the composer’s own version for two pianos (1899-1900); Gustav HolstThe Planets – the composer’s original
version for two piano (1913- )

The main event of this
new CD from Divine Art is Gustav’s Holst’s own two-piano version of his masterpiece
The Planets. This work has impressed
and moved me since first hearing the Scottish National Orchestra playing it
more than 40 years ago. However, when I approached the two-piano version of
this work I was a little wary, and a touch cynical. Still, I need not have
worried. It is a valid account of this work that inspires, excites and often astounds.
The highlight of Goldstone and Clemmow’s playing has to be the marvellous
interpretation of ‘Jupiter’ – with its ‘loping’ march tune. However, the intricacies of Mercury, the
rhythmic drive of Mars, the romance of Venus and the more rarefied atmosphere
of the distant spheres are all impressive.

Edward Elgar’s Serenade for Strings has always been one
of my favourite works for the string orchestra medium. However, I am not sure that I need a
recording of a piano duet version. On the other hand, it is interesting to
hear. There is a clarity about this duet that allows the harmonic and melodic
progress of the music to be heard in detail. I guess that it is good to have in
my collection; nonetheless, I will not turn to this version in preference to
Boult or Barbirolli and the band.

I have not come across
the music of Frank Bury before. He was
killed during the Normandy Landings in 1944. Certainly, this beautiful short Prelude and
Fugue demonstrates his compositional skills. The opening Prelude is a master
class in the genre of English ‘pastoral’ whilst the more ambitious fugue nods
to Handel in the ‘theme’. However, the exposition of the fugue is anything but
baroque. Although this big, powerful work is largely ‘conservative’ in its
musical language, it manages to push the boundaries towards an almost Prokofievian
intensity. I understand this is the only composition of Bury’s currently
available on CD. Based on this Prelude and Fugue we have to hope there will be
a deeper exploration of this unknown composer. Unfortunately, this present work
would appear to be the only one in print at this time: I hope someone will tell
me that I am wrong on this score.

Edgar L. Bainton is a
composer with whom I can do business. Whether it is one of his three symphonies
or the great anthem ‘And I saw a new Heaven’, he always exhibits a craftsman
like approach to his music: it typically inspires and moves the listener. As an
admirer of Richard Wagner, his musical style is neo-romantic; however, this
does not imply that he wrote parodies or pastiches of an earlier generation of
music. The Miniature Suite for piano duet is a perfect miniature displaying a
typically ‘English’ mood – with nods to Debussy and Vaughan Williams. There is
nothing here of a Wagnerian disposition. My only criticism is that it is excessively
short.

Holst’s ‘Elegy’ (In
Memoriam William Morris) is a dark, austere work that is funereal in its
progress. It is written as a processional march – with a huge climax in the
middle section. If I am honest I prefer the orchestral version, however, the
present two-piano version preserves the dignity of the original. It is
difficult to understand from the liner notes whether this piece is performed in
the Colin Matthew’s ‘modern performing edition’ or as the track listings
suggest that is is played directly from Holst’s own ‘version for two pianos.’

In
spite of my reservations about the Elgar ‘Serenade’, this is an important
release from Divine Art. The recording is excellent: the playing of all the
works is superb. The interaction between Goldstone and Clemmow is tight and
always musically convincing. I do not wish to compare this present version of The Planets with that of Fiona and John
York on NIMBUS Records NI5871.
However, I did suggest in my review of that
CD that it was ‘an achievement that will long stand the test of time and will
hardly be bettered’. Whether the present recording is ‘better’ is largely
irrelevant. Certainly, as far as The
Planets is concerned, it is a little shorter. However, I thoroughly enjoyed
both two-piano versions of this great work. Moreover, the Frank Bury and Edgar Bainton are
attractive bonuses.

Comment received:-
Can I point out that the version played here, and the one performed by the Yorks on the Nimbus disc, are DIFFERENT WORKS……. The Yorks do not play on two pianos but as a piano duet (on one instrument) using the version revised from the orchestral piece by Nora Day and Vally Lasker, under Holst’s supervision .
The version on our disc is Holst’s original two –piano version which PRECEDED the orchestral one…. so has many differences, and so a direct comparison is rather more problematical. .
Divine Art

About Me

I am well over fifty years old: the end of the run of baby boomers! I was born in Glasgow, moving south to York in the late ‘seventies. I now work in London.
My main interest is British Music from the nineteenth century onwards.
I love the ‘arch-typical’ English countryside – and have always wanted to ‘Go West, Boy’.
A. E. Housman and the ‘Georgian’ poets are a huge influence on my aesthetic. I have spent much of my life looking for the ‘Land of Lost Content’ and only occasionally glimpsed it…somewhere in…???
My recently published work includes essays on Ivor Gurney’s song ‘On Wenlock Edge’ for the Gurney Society Journal, The Music of Marion Scott and a study of Janet Hamilton’s songs for the British Music Society Journal, and the composer Muriel Herbert for the Housman Society.
I have contributed to the journals of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, the Finzi Society, and the Bliss Society, the Berkeley Society, the BMS Newsletter and regular CD reviews for MusicWeb International.